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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

A little while ago, Dan of tdaxp suggested in jest that I ought to start an “Ask Mark” advice segment on Zenpundit which I found quite amusing. Then suddenly, my email box rang with an inquiry from Rutgers historian Judith Klinghoffer ( also posted on her HNN blog Deja Vu) posed to her by a reader:

“A few months ago, I made a new friend who is an activist for numerous progressive and left-wing causes (I live in Nevada, where he runs a statewide advocacy group which focuses primarily on environmental and social issues). My friend and I have agreed to disagree about politics, and although we occasionally engage in friendly little debates, the tone and content of these debates is always civil and respectful, and they usually end with one of us saying that we hadn’t thought about the issue that way before. As you might imagine, though, most of my friend’s friends, relatives, and coworkers are very far left politically.

I’d appreciate any thoughts you’ve got on this matter!”

I responded in email:

“ Dear Judith,

Your friend’s friend the writer strikes me as being afflicted with the self-referential stupidity of the incurious. Or at least the grating combination of self-absorbtion and ideological certitude. The problem isn’t that this writer is left-wing but that they are an overbearing boor.

I find humor to be helpful coupled with taking one of their points to the ridiculous logical extreme in pointing out that they may be in, fact, stretching things.

Of course they might very well lack a sense of humor too but usually the demonstration that you understood their point better than they did is usually enough of a shocker to make them think twice about what they are saying.”

There you have it. My first ( and most likely last) installment of Zenpundit posing as Ann Landers.

CHIROL’S BLOGOSPHERIC EMPIRE

” All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what
have the Romans ever done for us?”
– John Cleese, The Life of Brian

“Deos fortioribus adesse “
– Tacitus

Link Preface:

“History of Empire Part I.” by Chirol of Coming Anarchy

” History of Empire Part II” Ibid

“Response to Chirol on 2nd Generation Empires Part I” by Dan of tdaxp

“Empire” by The Jewish Blog

“Empires!!!” by Dr. Daniel Nexon of The Duck of Minerva


Chirol at Coming Anarchy has set off an a very interesting discussion with his series on 2nd Generation Empires and a full post is required for a critique ( you hit gold as a blogger when you write something and your comment section is not enough for your readers). I’m going to touch on some points here and I ecourage you to click the above links for the thoughtful responses Chirol’s post has already accrued.

1. Empires as a positive phenomenon:

I tend to agree with Chirol and Nexon here. The reflexive attitude floating in the culture is to presume ” imperialism” is a bad thing having been used as a perjorative for most of the previous century but you have to ask – relative to what ? What preceded the empire before it subjugated the ” other”. Often times what preceded empire was less than admirable.

For every straightforwardly avaricious and retrogressive colonial regime like the one in French Indochina you have numerous others stamping out headhunting, the suttee, slavery and other aspects of barbarism while building modernity and connectivity. Like most forms of governance, the historical moral record is mixed for empire but regimes that are not capable of non-zero sum outcomes are not likely to be sustained for any length of time. You also need to compare that record with what would have prevailed in the empire’s absence. A medieval Jew was far better off living under the Caliphate of Cordova or in Muslim Granada than in the petty duchies of backward Germany at the time. Or under Ferdinand and Isabella’s monarchy that came after the Moors.

The Belgians were among the worst of the lot of the European colonizers exceeding in cruelty even the Germans in Southwest Africa – and this is saying a lot. Yet prior to the arrival of the Belgians the Congo basin was dominated by Afro-Arab slavers from Zanzibar and cannibal chiefdoms of the interior that built fortified towns lavishly decorated with human skulls. A culture that is on a moral par with the Aztecs but without the astronomy and fancy architecture frankly deserves to lose.

Empires that disprove the rule by being phenomenal paragons of physical destruction and looting rather than economic order – Tamerlane’s, Attila’s, The Third Reich, the Soviet Union – were all exceptionally short-lived. Ah, but Alexander’s empire too was short-lived ? Yes, but he ushered in the Hellenistic Age and his successors all founded dynastic states.

2. What is ” Empire”? Are there generations of Empire ?

Classical empires on the Roman model built by conquest and annexation define the common understanding of the term. J.A Hobson and Lenin by critiquing modern European capitalist states and their economic relations with their colonial possessions redefined imperialism for the Left to include. eventually, normal transactional market relations as a form of coercive
” imperialism”. A politically self-serving and economically illiterate argument but one with remarkable longevity. For some writers today, an ” empire” is simply a large and powerful polity engaged in policies the author vehemently opposes.

Chirol has defined his 2GE as:

“Simply put, a second generation empire is one that increases its “network coverage” by means other than military force. They include economic, political, legal and cultural forces. The power to increase or decrease network coverage is also not completely one-sided as both partners tend to have the ability to create, adjust or sever ties, though as usual, the stronger states tend to set the rules and have considerable advantages over smaller ones.”

In other words, a 2GE is a dynamic civilizational network system greater than the sum of its parts. A 2GE could have a hegemonic dominant power or a set of powers where some are more equal than others but the ” empire” is the overarching system itself and not a particular state. Dan of tdaxp asked if a state could be 2GE and 1GE simultaneously ? It would seem that logically a 2GE could have a 1GE or several cohabitating within it fairly harmoniously since the 2GE is primarily an economic and soft power associational grouping.

Is there any logical tie between Chirol’s 1GE and 2GE concepts that merit referring to the latter as an ” empire”. The fundamental quality the two entities share in my view is that they are both strong centripetal geopolitical forces – they both attract or pull outside political entities into their system, albeit by different means. Calling the 2GE an ” empire” per se is a bit of a typological romanticization and is, politically speaking, unhelpful assuming that you support the establishment and growth of such entities because the term invites hostile ideological attention and opposition.

But substantively, the networking phenomena described by Chirol as “2GE” exists as a subset of globalization. The transnational characteristics of 2GE groupings like the EU and NAFTA are challenging traditional conceptions of the scope of national sovereignty under international law and shifting decision-making power over economic policy from national leaders to market forces and to international rule-set making institutions. It’s a discernable process and one that is apt to accelerate so long as globalization is allowed to continue progress to deeper and deeper levels of connectivity.

DEBATING THE DUCK [Updated]

I’ve been over at the comment section of the excellent IR blog Duck of Minerva, engaging Daniel Nexon on two of his posts ” War Posters and the Fascism Analogy ” ( inspired by Coming Anarchy’s series) and “John Ikenberry’s Pissed“. Daniel is also going to engage Chirol over 2GE.

I see Dan of tdaxp has some thoughts to share…..

UPDATE:

Totally unrelated but check out Penraker.

CORRUPTION OVER NATIONALISM

The Atlantic Monthly has a cover story ( subscription required) entitled “ In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine “that describes an all too common paradigm for Gap states – personalized rule of a ” Big Man”, multiplying networks of corruption, lack of transparency, democracy and rule of law and the threat of anarchic violence as a countervailing force to official misrule.

I seldom write on Israeli-Palestinian conflicts because the problem is presently insoluble. There can be no peace without a Palestinian state and there can be no Palestinian state until Palestinians accept that such a state at peace with Israel is an end in itself and not a mere waystation en route to Israel’s discorporation. The almost sixty-year old fantasy of driving the Jews into the sea when all facts point to a power calculus that would make that impossible indicates that Palestinian nationalism is actually secondary or tertiary to anti-Zionism, anti-semitism, pan-Arabism, Islamism and material factional interests.

The PA does not possess a monopoly over the use of force required to deliver upon any agreement with the Israeli government and neither the gangsters who run the PA nor HAMAS nor pro-settler Israeli hawks see in any interest in seeing the PA become stronger and effectively accountable. It is a shame because a genuine peace would bring enormous economic benefits to Israelis and Arabs alike as capital and labor markets were allowed to normalize and joint regional development projects would become possible.

Arafat, who may have looted upwards of a billion dollars from his people is gone but in his place are would-be mini-Arafats, the East bloc trained, hard-eyed chieftains of Fatah and the religious extremists of HAMAS and Islamic Jihad. Peace requires moderates and ME politics has little room for them.

RECOMMENDED READING

There will some more posting later today. Much later actually because I will soon be out on the lake cruising in a friend’s boat drinking cocktails, enjoying the 80 degree blue sky weather and the bikini-clad scenery. Rough life I realize, but it can’t all be PNM, obscure historical analogies and fourth generation warfare theory:

Chirol at Coming Anarchy has begin an very intriguing series on the nature of Second Generation Empire (2GE) – it is only at the preface stage but there’s more to come.

Sam at The Useless Tree and PLS at Whirledview lodge strong disagreements with the Gitmo policy, though for different reasons.

Bruce Kesler savages Hussein Jane Fonda

Shoshanna at Dreams into Lightning points to an article by Samir Hassan at Friends of Democracy that undercuts the theological justification for jihad used by the Islamist terrorists.

Peter Lavelle’s weekly round-up of Russia experts discuss The Great Game.

Hoo-HA !